updated 04:54 pm EDT, Fri July 5, 2013

Little additional regulatory approval remaining to complete the deal

As expected, the FCC has officially given the green light to the Softbank purchase of Sprint and the corresponding Sprint purchase of ClearWire. The statement from acting FCC chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said that the deal serves the public interest and will "accelerate the deployment of mobile broadband services and enhance competition."

This decision completes all federal government reviews of both SoftBank's investment in Sprint and Sprint's acquisition of Clearwire. Sprint's shareholders approved the SoftBank transaction with Sprint on June 25. Clearwire's shareholders are scheduled to vote on the Sprint transaction with Clearwire, which has been recommended by Clearwire's Board of Directors, on July 8. Sprint, Clearwire and SoftBank anticipate that the transactions will close in early July 2013, subject to the remaining closing conditions.

The bandwidth available to Sprint will not change as a result of the deal. The purchase has already cleared the US Committee of Foreign Involvement as a result of Softbank's purchase of the US carrier.